is sanding down and primering a car like this a stupid idea. im not looking to get any more value but i like the look. i want to sand it down, put a few coats of primer on and sometime get it painted the same color. please get back and thanks for the help.

is sanding down and primering a car like this a stupid idea. im not looking to get any more value but i like the look. i want to sand it down, put a few coats of primer on and sometime get it painted the same color. please get back and thanks for the help.

Didn't you used to be a member of this forum under a different name? It's only stupid if you're going to sand it down to bare metal which will cause it to rust rapidly. As long as you just scuff and shoot it you'll be okay.

__________________Thanks for the pic, jedimario.

"Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence."Frank Vincent Zappa, 1940-1993

If you're going to paint the car the same color, the only place you need primer on is areas that are sanded through to metal or on areas you are going to be doing bodywork on.

Is that paint a factory paint? If so, you don't need a sealer, just a thorough sanding before painting. If it's an aftermarket paint already, and you don't know what kind of paint it is (urethane, laquer, catalyzed enamel, uncatalyzed enamel, synthetic enamel), you'll probably need a sealer over the repainted areas to keep the new paint from reacting.

Usually, however, on a factory paint or old respray, you can get away with using a DA or hand sanding with 320 grit to level the surface and get it uniformly dull, then hit it with the new paint. If during sanding you go through to the metal anywhere, you wil need to hit that with primer, then hand sand it to prep for paint. Since a lot of colors, especially metallics, are kind of transparent, you may need to hit primed areas (or areas that are lighter after sanding) with a couple extra coats of color first, before spraying overall.

Here's a thread that I described a bunch of prep work in. It was based around a question about Maaco, but a lot of it applies here, as well:

This is a reply to your question on this thread and also to the value question on the website you linked me to:

First off, don't be in too big a hurry to sand down and primer. If you want the primer look (which is a 60's resto-mod look) then that's your personnal preference but an older repaint will look better than a primer in my opinion. Especially with the vinyl top. If you are going to do it then just wait until you have to money to get it prepped and painted at the same time. It's not necessarily bad to take it to maaco just take your own paint up there too. That's what I have done in the past and that really helps. Don't let them be the ones to prep it either because they don't necessarily know what they are doing.

Secondly. Your car will never have the value that a 2-door model will. Sorry bro that's just how things work. The value of a classic is in the eye of the beholder. This means that the only reason that a 72 Chevelle is more valuable than say a 72 Cutlass 442 is that these people that pay 40K for them are doing so because it brings back the nostalgia of when they were kids. The 442 is not as valuable (although equally matched on most levels) because they were higher end cars back in their day and the ones driving them were middle aged "Moms and Dads." These people are long since retired or dead by now and so there is no nostalgia demand for these cars. This very long reply is now going to be wrapped up to say that Cutlass are gaining value just recently because people are looking for alternatives to the overpriced mainstream muscle. This makes them look for something "similar" to what they had back when they were kids which was the 2-door models of chevelle and what-not. I hope this has helped you with your questions.